Sympathy for the devil

by Holly Lisle

  Agonostis decided to get a good look at his surrounding terrain—he felt he ought to be dressed for that; in both a human body and human clothes. He could walk around, get a feel for the type of action in his neighborhood, maybe come up with a few little sidelines the Fiend Downstairs couldn't find out about, figure out ways to skim a nice piece of the action off the top without getting caught. . . .

  He smiled. After all the time he'd spent in slow-time doing inventory, he felt like death fried and diced, but Earth air was invigorating stuff . . . and the limitless possibilities in his new situation excited him.

  He strolled to the suit rack to outfit himself. He'd counted the suits before, along with the dresses and boxes of shoes, but he hadn't even really looked at any of them. He looked now, and recoiled in horror. There were hundreds of them, in all sizes—and every suit was a wide-lapeled polyester leisure suit, each in colors apparently deemed fashionable in Hell. Lava Orange, Gangrene Green, Boil Red, Bruise Purple, and a number of colors so ugly Agonostis thought he was better off leaving them nameless. All of the jackets were the kind with zippers.

  All the socks were white sport socks.

  All the shoes were black, thick-soled, and blunt-toed; and they came in two widths—extra-extra wide, and extra-extra narrow.

  The ties had been scientifically designed not to match any of the suits, and the shirts . . .

  He looked at those shirts and shuddered. Polyester knit Hell-waiian prints. He wondered which damned designer had been put to work on them.

  The female clothing, now that he looked at it, was equally dreadful. He was going to have to use a lot of his precious cash to outfit his leccubi in halfway indecent clothing. But more importantly, he was going to have to come up with something sexy for himself.

  There was no way in Hell, he decided, that the Lord of Lust would wear polyester. Not to a first meeting, anyway.

  He wished he'd been able to find out something about Dayne Kuttner—he wanted to have an idea of what she'd find attractive in a man. He didn't know how old she was or what she looked like—or even if she was married. It would be just his luck that she was pushing the century mark, and faithfully married for the last eighty years.

  He manifested himself into the shape of an overweight, red-faced, middle-aged human, put on one of the horrible leisure suits, and grimaced when he discovered the pants were two inches too short, so that his white socks nearly glowed in the dim light of the warehouse.

  He shortened his legs by two inches—and the hems of the pants shrank by two more inches.

  "Right," he muttered. Clothes from Hell. The only thing to do with them was burn them—and he wasn't even sure they would burn. Such clothing would be fine for devils, and even a step up if worn by demons—but he was going to have to go shopping. First thing in the morning.

  Chapter 13

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9TH

  Agonostis knew about malls. Malls were Sin Central. People met there for assignations, and lied and cheated and stole and lusted in malls. He didn't know who had come up with the idea for them, but he was sure it was one of Hell's own.

  With the pockets of his hellish puce polyester leisure suit stuffed full of cash, he materialized out in the parking lot of one of Charlotte's larger, newer malls at ten A.M. on Saturday morning, just as the doors opened to the public. He'd spent the night working, but that was of no consequence to him. While he needed to eat to maintain his body's health, so far it seemed that he didn't actually need to sleep.

  He was alert, he was in good spirits, and he was confident that before the day was out, he and the rest of his crew would hold the state of North Carolina firmly by the testicles.

  He waddled into the mall, and immediately earned the stares and giggles of teenaged girls, and the shocked sidelong glances and poorly disguised smirks of their mothers.

  No matter, he told himself. The short, fat, balding puce-clad persona was only the creation of a moment, and as a research vehicle, it would do. He bought a newspaper from one of the newsstands, settled himself on a bench, and pretended to read. Thus obscured, he was able to watch the people who passed by him. He observed, and he learned.

  Tall, square-jawed men in their late thirties, dressed in expensive suits, drew the glances of well-dressed, upper-class women. Boys in baggy T-shirts and ripped jeans and backwards-turned baseball caps attracted the admiring stares of the silly little girls.

  But only one man who passed him turned every female head. The man was young—perhaps twenty-five, certainly no more than twenty-eight. He was a superb physical specimen, tallish, well-muscled but certainly not overly so, with an attractive face. His dark hair was short and neatly styled; he wore his white oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up and tucked into neat, new-looking blue jeans. He wore a pair of leather deck shoes without socks.

  Agonostis thought that sort of appearance would suit him well enough, at least until he'd had a chance to check out Dayne Kuttner. If she turned out to be eighty, he'd come up with another plan. If she didn't turn out to be eighty, he'd gauge her response to him and, if necessary, try again as somebody else.

  He found a store that sold men's casual clothing and waddled inside. A cute, pert little sales clerk eyed him doubtfully and said, "May I . . . help you . . . sir?" She paused. "There's a men's large and tall just around the corner."

  She smelled delicious. He thought it was a shame he couldn't hurt humans—he imagined she would taste much better than imp. He looked up at her and said, "I'm looking for something for my . . . son. He's a tall boy—about six feet, I suppose. Thin. Lots of muscles."

  He watched one of her eyebrows raise, and from the tiniest of twitches at the corner of her mouth, he realized she was considering that his son most likely wasn't. "Do you have any idea what size he wears?"

  "His mother buys things for him most of the time."

  "Ah." She sighed. "I don't know how I can help you if you don't know what his sizes are."

  "I see." Agonostis walked back to the wall of shelves with those soft blue jeans folded from floor to ceiling. He studied the rows of numbers, growing increasingly more frustrated as he studied them. Finally he snapped, "Just what are these numbers supposed to mean?"

  She walked back, the expression on her face pure disbelief. "Sir, what size do you . . ." She stared at the hems of his pants, still a good two inches above his shoe tops, and at his jacket with the sleeves too long by the same proportions, and she shook her head, bemused. "Never mind. The number on the left is the waist size. The number on the right is the inseam size—the length from the top of the inside of your leg to the top of your shoe."

  "So little numbers on the left and big numbers on the right are better than the other way around."

  She was having a hard time keeping a straight face. "Most people choose them by whether they fit or not, not by whether the numbers are better or worse."

  "That would explain a lot," he muttered. He found some pants with a smallish waist number and a long inseam, and a white shirt, size Large—that at least was simple enough—and went up to the counter to pay.

  "If you keep the tags, you can bring those back," the clerk said. "In case they don't fit."

  "They'll fit," he grumbled.

  She was grinning as he walked away.

  He stopped in a shoe store, and looked up at the clerk there—also a woman, also taller than him. "What is an average shoe size for a man six feet tall?" he asked her.

  "Just in general?" she asked.

  "Yes . . . just in general."

  "Are you doing a survey?"

  "No," he snapped. "I'm buying a pair of shoes."

  "Why don't we measure your feet—"

  "I don't want to measure my feet. I want some shoes that will look right on somebody six feet tall."

  She sucked on her bottom lip and turned away—he heard her snicker as she led him to the displays.

  "Twelve or thirteen is probably about right," she said. "I mean, you know what they say about the si
zes of feet and the size of other things. . . ."

  That he knew. He found a pair of leather shoes in a size thirteen, average width, had her box them, and strolled to the nearest restroom.

  Agonostis knew about restrooms, too—as a matter of fact, he knew all sorts of truly wicked things about restrooms; but the thing he knew that would serve him at the moment was that restrooms were good places to change.

  He doubted that many people changed as completely as he intended to, of course.

  He found a stall and unwrapped the clothing. He undressed, and stretched himself tall and thin. He had no real idea how tall or how thin—he just guessed. He pulled the pants up and discovered that he'd been extreme in both directions. He filled out a bit, making sure to add sculpted muscle to his legs as he shortened them. He tugged on the shirt and broadened his shoulders and muscled his arms until the cloth was snug there. He made his stomach flat and perfectly muscled. He fumbled with the buttons—nothing in Hell had buttons.

  He rolled the sleeves up, and resized the muscles of his forearms until he liked the way they looked. He unbuttoned the top two buttons.

  Chest hair? He looked down at his slick chest. Yes—he thought so. And hair on the forearms, too. He studied his hands. They were still the fat-fingered hands of Leisure Suit Louie; he lengthened them, and made them strong, and gave them calluses. He studied the fingernails—he was going to miss his own needle-tipped talons, but those simply wouldn't go with the look. He thought blunt, broad, and very clean—kept trimmed short. The hands of a male model.

  Face. He needed a good face. He didn't want to look like anybody else; no movie star faces, no jet setters. He needed his own face.

  He tried to recall the planes of his face when he'd still been one of Heaven's angels. It was dangerous to think back to that time. More than one of Hell's angels, in a fit of reminiscing, had ended up backsliding enough to win Lucifer's fury and a one-way trip to the Pit. But it had been, he recalled, an exceptionally fine face.

  Long, sharp, narrow nose; full lips; even, perfect teeth; strong jaw. He gave himself thick, slightly wavy black hair cut short but full on top, arching black brows, and, for just that extra touch of the unusual, he made his eyes the rich golden-brown color of Russian amber.

  He dumped the Hellwear into his shopping bag, and tossed the shopping bag into the trashcan. He studied himself at the mirror in front of the sink, and smiled. He was gorgeous . . . if he did say so himself. He looked like he was in his early twenties, with a vaguely southern European cast to his features.

  D'Agonostis, he decided. Adam D'Agonostis. Who could possibly distrust a hot-looking guy named Adam? And the corollaries to temptation, damnation and original sin were so amusing.

  He strolled back into the main mall, and smiled as women nearly walked into walls staring at him. This was definitely the look. He wondered what time it was—he needed a watch.

  He found a jewelry store that sold Rolexes and bought a solid gold one. That set him back a hefty chunk, but the Rolex was understated, and spoke of both wealth and power. He liked it. The woman who sold it to him was amusing, too. She flirted with him, he flirted back—then he tempted her into the men's room and screwed her in one of the stalls. Afterward, because it amused him, he looked up the girls who sold him the clothes and the shoes, and followed suit with them. They were all willing—more than willing.

  He smiled, walking out of the mall.

  Dayne Kuttner wouldn't know what hit her.

  Chapter 14

  Eleven A.M. Zero hour. North Carolina got the first jolt from an unexpected red-hot poker.

  CeeCee McAllister, spending her weekend at the beach, was in the tub taking a bubble bath and reading Cosmopolitan. The article was great—"How to Tell If He's Good In Bed BEFORE You Hit the Sheets." She was running through the list of men she knew but didn't know quite as well as she might, applying the quiz questions to them.

  The phone on the stand beside the tub rang.

  She sat up to answer it.

  Something hideous and blue with enormous ears pinched her nipple, picked up the phone, and said cheerfully, "Suzy McAllister Sex for Less—do you wanna get laid today?"

  Then, while she was still screaming, it handed the phone to her and blinked out of existence.

  In the master bedroom of a nice little two-story bungalow in the northern part of the state, Mac Garret and his client, Tanya Bayer Sidonns, soon to be Tanya Bayer again, were screwing their brains out. Mac loved his female divorce clients—so many of them hadn't had attention in years, and if he so much as smiled kindly at them, they were ready to do whatever he wanted.

  Tanya wasn't bad. She was a nice enough looking woman, if a bit long in the tooth—but from the back, he thought, pumping away, who noticed teeth?

  The phone rang.

  "Let it ring," Tanya muttered.

  "Uh . . . . huh . . ." he managed by way of answer.

  It rang again.

  It didn't ring a third time.

  Both of them froze as they heard the characteristic click of a phone being lifted from its cradle. Then a rich, beautiful contralto said, "Of course, Mr. Siddons. She has her skirt up around her ears right now and her lawyer is doing unspeakable things to her, but I'm sure she'll be willing to come to the phone in a few minutes. Would you like to wait until he comes, or would you rather call back?"

  A thing sat on the nightstand—a disgusting blue thing with a malicious grin on its face. It waggled its ears at them and said into the receiver, "Ooop, not a problem now! I think his willy went wooshy. Hang on."

  It dropped the phone on the floor and disappeared into thin air.

  In a filthy, seedy, city apartment, an answering machine rang the third time.

  Earwax picked it up, but said nothing.

  "I thought you'd gotten stupid and tried to run. Where's the stuff?" The voice might have belonged to Godzilla. Maybe King Kong. The steroid monster attached to it, Earwax thought, probably didn't weigh less than three, maybe four hundred pounds.

  The tenant of the apartment, at that moment, stoned out of his skull and passed out in the bedroom, didn't top a hundred. Earwax said, "I'll have it at my place in fifteen minutes, you freaking pervert. If you want it, you'll have to come in and get it."

  "Where the hell are you?"

  "You don't know?" Earwax frowned, blinked to the outside of the building, then back in again. "534-D Sunrise Terrace Apartments, on Beecher Street."

  "If you don't have it this time, you little shit, I'm going to turn you into sausage."

  "By all means, you pimple on the ass of the universe. Your father screwed sheep and your mother went baaaa," Earwax told the thug, and hung up.

  He adored his new job.

  Chapter 15

  Downstairs, someone knocked at her door.

  Dayne opened one eye and squinted at the clock across the room.

  "Noon?" she muttered. "It's noon?"

  Paige hadn't been kidding when she said they were going to be up late over at her place. Dayne hadn't gotten home until nearly four A.M.—but she'd had a wonderful time. The man they'd had over for her to meet had been very nice and very funny, and if neither of the two of them were at all interested in each other, everyone had still had a great time.

  And the steaks had been delicious.

  Porthos stood on the edge of her mattress, glaring at her. He took doors very seriously, and obviously felt she damned well ought to go downstairs and answer this one.

  Another polite rap, then whoever was out there tried the doorbell.

  Dayne rolled out of bed, pulled on the robe that lay across her reading chair, and peeked out her window.

  "Oh, my God," she murmured. The man on her landing deserved to be in the Babedom Hall of Fame. He had great shoulders and a narrow waist. He had long, lean legs. He was young. He was handsome.

  He was leaving.

  "No-no-no-no-no!" she yelped. She fumbled with the latch on her window, and pulled out the nails to either side t
hat pegged it in place, and pounded with one fist all around the frame until the blasted thing unstuck, and shoved it up, and leaned out, panting slightly.

  The racket she'd made trying to get the window open had alerted the gorgeous stranger, and he stood just off the landing, waiting, looking up at her.

  "Hi," she said, feeling rumpled and rather silly leaning out her window in her bathrobe. "Can I help you?"

  He smiled up at her, and her heart did a skittering little tap dance against her ribs. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

  It was that obvious? She winced inside—her hair was probably sticking up in a hundred directions. "I should have been up ages ago," she said, praying that he wouldn't feel so guilty about bothering her that he'd leave. Then she considered . . . it was noon on a Saturday. Maybe he was going door to door selling something.

  She shrugged. She hadn't bought anything lately. Maybe she should. She smiled encouragingly. "What did you need?"

  His eyes had been fixed on her face, and she realized he was watching her lips move. "Um . . ." he said, and she saw him start just a little. "Oh." He looked into her eyes and—Lord have mercy—he blushed. "My car broke down." He pointed back over his shoulder, and she looked behind him.

  A forest-green Porsche convertible with a tan interior sat beneath the willow oak in front of her apartment, its hood up. A thin trail of black smoke curled up from the engine. Black smoke, Dayne knew, tended to be a lot more expensive than white smoke where cars were concerned. "That looks pretty bad," she told him.

  He nodded. "I was hoping you wouldn't mind making a call for me. My auto club should be able to send someone right out to get it."